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Chimera
Brutal, cunning, and, above all, silent: the chimera are known across the colonized systems as beasts of death and misery. In the dark swamps and fungal forests of many a planet, chimera burrow beneath the dirt and mud, waiting for some unlucky soul to stray too close to their waiting jaws. Characteristics The chimera are, like their mythical namesakes, amalgamations of a variety of animal species. With reptilian skin, avian visual processing, and primate intelligence, the chimera mixes traits from Earth's most successful predatory species with some entirely artificial traits. The resulting abomination is a living weapon, made only to kill as efficiently and quickly as possible. The average chimera reaches a height of 1.5m from shoulder to foot, with a length of 3m including the tail. While not particularly fast, chimera are, for their size, surprisingly quiet. Enlarged lungs and efficient hypoxia responses allow chimera to stop their breathing while ambushing prey, making it near-impossible for an unaided traveler to sense them. Additionally, digging claws allow for chimera to dig tunnels to lay in wait for potential victims; it is not uncommon for chimera to burst from beneath the ground to attack their prey. The most dangerous trait of a chimera, however, is its intelligence. Chimera, while lacking in high-level abstraction, are nearly on par with humans in problem-solving ability. These beasts have an uncanny ability to avoid traps and have even been observed arranging their own rudimentary pit-falls for catching prey. Pre-Cataclysm Before the Cataclysm, chimera were largely used for two applications: military area denial, and terraforming of planets with existing biospheres. While not used by established military forces, chimera embryos would often be bought on the black market by insurgent forces. These forces often used chimera to stall the progress of more advanced militaries- by seeding a disputed area with chimera, an insurgency could deny their enemies the use of positions within the seeded area. Unlike landmines, chimera could be neutralized at a moment's notice with a nanite kill switch- allowing for chimera-infested territory to be rapidly reclaimed whenever military strategy allowed. Many a warlord rose to prominence using chimera-based tactics in the more untamed, brutal colonial worlds on the edges of UNCA space. A more accepted, though still controversial, use of chimera was their application in terraforming operations. Although the vast majority of worlds selected for colonization were not home to native life, a few outliers did have budding native ecologies. The first few of these life-bearing worlds were treated as inviolable treasures- but, in time, so many of these were discovered that they ceased to be novel. Although xenobiologists would always preserve samples of every species they could find, it became common to sterilize planets whose ecologies stood in the way of human colonization. The standard method for sterilization was the orbital graser - however, in those planets where local life was remarkably resistant to radiation, various strains of chimera would be used to consume local biology. When the surface of the target world was barren, the nanite kill switch would be activated to destroy the chimera, leaving the planet clear for any future terraforming and ecology implementation that its colonists desired. Post-Cataclysm